So how hard of a job is driving a truck?

One other small point not mentioned, is that there are many types of lorry drivers, there are the ones who drive locally, probably from a depot to a regular customer 2 or 3 times per day or what is commonly known as tramping.

You could leave home at 04.30 on Sunday morning not to return for 2, 3, or even 6 weeks later if your destination is Europe, add to this that the normal day is 13 hours but is stretched to 15 hours 3 times per week by a seventeen year old kid screaming down the phone every 20 minutes.

So you have done 10 hours driving and find yourself in a layby at the side of the A1, every time a truck or car passes the truck rocks, making it difficult to boil the kettle, You make something to eat but then you have to get some sleep as youre boss tells you to take a reduced 9 hours rest that day, the load you have is urgent and must be in Aberdeen before 6am.

Along with that is we now have to carry £35 electronic driver cards and have a £100 quid medical every 5 years, These cost the driver, not the company.

And for my final rant, although I have been driving a truck since I was 17 and learnt from the bottom up. Some civil servant has now decided I have to have an NVQ known as the driver CPC which involves teaching your granny to suck eggs. In my 34 years in transport, I now have to prove to a snotty youth that I can still do my job.

No wonder we are antisocial

Originally Posted by wheelnut

One other small point not mentioned, is that there are many types of lorry drivers, there are the ones who drive locally, probably from a depot to a regular customer 2 or 3 times per day or what is commonly known as tramping.

You could leave home at 04.30 on Sunday morning not to return for 2, 3, or even 6 weeks later if your destination is Europe, add to this that the normal day is 13 hours but is stretched to 15 hours 3 times per week by a seventeen year old kid screaming down the phone every 20 minutes.

So you have done 10 hours driving and find yourself in a layby at the side of the A1, every time a truck or car passes the truck rocks, making it difficult to boil the kettle, You make something to eat but then you have to get some sleep as youre boss tells you to take a reduced 9 hours rest that day, the load you have is urgent and must be in Aberdeen before 6am.

Along with that is we now have to carry £35 electronic driver cards and have a £100 quid medical every 5 years, These cost the driver, not the company.

And for my final rant, although I have been driving a truck since I was 17 and learnt from the bottom up. Some civil servant has now decided I have to have an NVQ known as the driver CPC which involves teaching your granny to suck eggs. In my 34 years in transport, I now have to prove to a snotty youth that I can still do my job.

No wonder we are antisocial

You like your job then Wheelnut

The figures which are quoted are after O/T and are specifically aimed at Shell drivers who deliver fuel. Tanker drivers do generally get better pay than their counterparts because of the load which they are carrying. My Dad works for Tesco fuel and he picks up even more than what these Shell guys are picking up but works long unsociable hours for it and sometimes you have to wonder what the long term health implications are from the fumes when loading/unloading.

Sure they are getting more than those in Iraq/Afghanistan who are being shot at but then so am I. Danger isnt attributed to a salary or else all of these city types in London who are crippling the economy by betting on the future markets of oil would be picking up peanuts.

Originally Posted by Pedrosa

I thought that you let me off extremely lightly there Ed.

Because the lawsuit is in the post

i could make more comments as a driver but as ive just done a 13hr day and heading for inverness at silly oclock in the morning!!!!!! must we be on about the wages or about the stupid cost of fuel, its now over £800 to fill my wagon up. not my money but still crazy prices only going to get worse.

Originally Posted by wheelnut

when you go to work as a fairy cake salesman or a teacher, or a computer programmer. Do you have Vosa constantly checking your driving hours? Do you have the Traffic Commisioners monitoring your every move?

No, we (teacher, that is, not the fairy cake salesman ) don't get that, but as with many, many jobs in this country, there is still someone always breathing down your neck, be it parents/other adults, the boss, the boss' boss, OFSTED with the power to close a school, the government...the list goes on.

A fair wage for a fair job is fine, considering hours worked, dangers involved, etc etc..

BUT! I wonder if there's any profession/job out there who, when they go on strike, actually gets public sympathy? Teachers certainly didn't get it when they had a one day strike (and that wasn't every union that striked, so not all teachers/schools were affected), the Police were slagged off for having a demonstration about pay deals, now the truckers. Fire crews are touted as putting people's lives in danger, as are nurses. Bin men are slagged off for putting health at risk.

[Biker Biggles]

Getting slagged off goes with the territory when you are in an industrial dispute.But there is a significant proportion of people who do support workers in dispute,especially if there is a genuine rationale behind it.This body of opinion is very rarely reported in the mainstream media,hardly a surprise when you consider who owns and controls most of that media,or who gives it a charter in the case of the BBC.Industrial disputes are not generally about getting mass public support,they are a trial of strength,with most of the odds stacked against the workers in dispute.If you add up the power of the law,the state and the media it amounts to quite a barrier to successfull industrial action.
Now Id be the first to agree that what went down in the 60s and 70s was not acceptable,but the pendulum has long since swung back the other way now.

Well, when you pay more than 3 grand for training, have stressful working conditions and you're carrying a load of explosive material (when empty) and an incendiary (when full) you really should be on a decent wage and tbh, ?36,000 isn't a lot to ask for. This ?41,000 is ******** and it comes from averages incl overtime and higher grades.

As stewie has already said any driver carrying hazardous loads and of course 15,000 odd litres of petrol obviously falls into this catagory deserves more money than someone carrying clothes or paper etc. And to anyone who doesnt see this is crazy i mean yes they have got a very good safety record to one crash has the potential to cause a fair size disaster its a bomb on wheels after all.
Plus these guys work unsocial hours and also have the danger when loading and unloading there tankers with fuel, i say they deserve every penny of what they want certainly more than alot of other professions i could mention, its not a job i could do i couldnt handle the tedium up and down motorways every day truckers allow us everyday folk to live the lives we lead and without them the world would be a very different place and certainly alot less conveinient.
Goodluck to them

I think it's accepted that the unloading/loading of fuel is dangerous as well as the responsibility of driving the stuff around, but I worked at a petrol station for a few months and when a delivery was made we had stand with the tanker whilst it was being pumped into the stations tanks and do the paperwork. I certainly wasn't getting ?30 whatever grand for that and i'm sure all other petrol station workers aren't. Where do you draw the line?